Out house toilet on a farm

Friday, 20 May 2011

This is my university work. I have to develop a 3D artistic asset for a game environment that has to address the limit laid out by hardware and games engines. The asset will be part of a diorama for a realistic game environment which will be Outhouse toilet on the wheel. The asset will be partially be based on a photographic reference has shown below;

I was impressed while researching outhouse for my assignment to find that, someone has created an outhouse toilet. Which is hard to believe, but also it’s also a great imaginary idea. After seeing this image, I decided to create not just an outhouse, but also attached it a similar outlook of a scooter to create a similar image has the image above.

The above image of a farm house is used to help me create an environment that will go with the main assert which is an outhouse toilet. The reason for choosing a farm environment for the assert, was due to the fact that, outhouse are more likely to be found in areas like this one.

Week 1 - 18th Feb 2011

This week, I have been researching for ideas and references for the asset that I will model keeping in mind that it’s a 90% worth of the marks. I found it difficult to think of anything that can be worth that much marks, because I’m still weak on using Maya. I want to model something more complicated even though I’m struggling, because I don’t want to be marked down due to presenting a simple model.

When researching for references, I was making sure that I choice something to model that won’t involve complicated textures, because I am also not that much familiar with photo shop, but overall I knew I will have to do a complicated textures if I have to model something worth 90% of the mark.

Week 2 – 25th Feb 2011

This week after researching in my first week and gathering reference ideas, I came up with one final decision. To model a pickup track and the diorama would be on a farm house, has the previous image of farm house I had gathered. The picture below will be my reference; I was unable to find a god reference to show all sides of the pickup track.

Week 3 – 4th march 2011

This week I have started modelling the pickup track. I am finding it hard to model, because it’s vehicles which are hard to model if you are not that much experienced with modelling. Due to not having more references, I am trying to image how the track looks at the back. I had used different reference from different pickup tracks for ideas have well.

Week 4 – 11th March 2011

The track is going well this week, I am almost done modelling the all model, just need to make sure the parts are similar and ready to put together to form a pickup track. The only problem I am having is the front window. I just can’t get the shape of it well enough to go with the rest of the track. This is the pickup track so far. It just needs finishing touches e.g. sort the wheels out and combine the objects together.

Week 5 – 18th March 2011

This week, something happened that made me change my assert idea completely. My memory stick got damage on Tuesday this week and all my work that I had done for this semester was gone. I have no idea why I didn’t save backup in case this happened. I haven’t done anything all week after that happened, because my mind is frozen after doing all my 9 weeks’ worth of work. What I knew for sure is, I was not going to model a pick up track again, because it took me a while to do what I had done so far and I was almost finished, it just needed to be arranged and put all the parts together and just make sure that the main things are all done. I also changed my mind of what the environment will be. I decided to just do a simple field of grass with the road that has not been used for years; example shown below.

Week 6 – 25th March 2011

This week I have been modelling the farm house for the environment. I have gone back to my first decision of modelling a farm house. I had an idea that what ever model I choice to create will have to be on a farm house. Since all my work was gone, this week I have just focused more on modelling the farm.

While doing so, I started thinking about what can be found on a farm. This asserts will be my main assert so I had to think carefully about it. After finishing modelling the farm, I decided to look at different farms and the environment around it. Then I came across a painting that had an

Outhouse toilet on a farm. After seeing that, I decided, this is it, this will be my final decision.

Then near the end of the week, I started doing some research on different types of outhouse.

After some good research I then came across this picture, which became my finial main assert to go with my diorama.

Week 7 – 1st April 2011

This week I have started modelling the outhouse and so far, so good. This is how it’s looking at the moment.

Week 8 – 8th April 2011

This week I am just doing some touches on the object and the environment on the farm house. So far so good, the all scene’s looking good has you can see below;

Something that I have been wondering about and worried about is, if this is good enough for a 90% work assignment.

Week 9 – 15th April 2011

This week I have just been doing some finishing touches of the farm house and making sure it’s within the poly count.

Week 10 – 22nd April 2011

This week I have been working on the outhouse toilet and just finishing it off ready for texture. Furthermore, I have been combining different objects and grouping them together in the UV texture editor according to the texture. I have made sure that all I have to do next week are the texture in Photo Shop before my trial runs out.

Week 11 – 29th April 2011

This week has been texture week. Working in Photo Shop and then put them unto the objects. The problems I have been having is, every time I add texture to the outhouse, it was going transparent and I had no idea why. And every time I more the object away from the outhouse the transparent goes away. Then after looking into the hyper shade, I found out that for some reason every time I add the texture in the material attribute colour, it was automatically adding on the transparent. But I couldn’t figure it out how to remove it. Then after asking my roommate who is in his 3rd year at Derby University. He told me that most people are saying that Maya’s doing the same to them and all I need to do is right slick on the transparent and break the connection. After trying it out, all was fixed and I was able to continue my work and saving every minute, because Maya also keeps freezing and shutting itself down. At the end of the week I managed to add all the materials to the objects. I have only got a week left until deadline, due to the bank holidays, university has been closed most of the days, so I was unable to use crazy bump to some of the materials and also adding normal to them, My crazy bump trial run out 2 months ago. So I will try sorting that out next week by Wednesday, since Friday is hand in date. When I finish everything, I need to put all asserts and the diorama in UDK (unreal), but I am unsure about something, so I have emailed my lecture if I can have a tutorial on Wednesday morning. I am hoping his able to get the email on time.

Week 12 – 2nd May 2011 (Final Week)

This week I have been trying to get my models into UDK (unreal), it has been a really challenge to do it. I really found it difficult to follow the steps and how to set materials in UDK. The screen shots below are my final work for this assignment in Maya. In the end the paint effects for the grass and the flower was taken away, due to lack of time to sort the textures out has well has for poly court.

The images below are rendered in UDK after importing them and adding textures and light.

The image below is the final UDK render with all the details of the environment and objects.